Welcome to Erin Mankie's Cabinet of Curiosity's, a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm

and Mild.

Our world is full of the unexplainable.

And if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display,

just waiting for us to explore.

Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosity's.

There's an ancient proverb that says,

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

When two factions oppose a mutual threat, they can join forces to defeat them.

Just before the start of War War II, Finland had two enemies, Germany and the Soviet Union.

Because of one side's aggressive tactics, it had to make a very unfortunate friend of the other.

You see, Germany and the Russians had divvied up Finland, Latvia, Estonia, and several

other Baltic states as part of the Molotov ribbon-trop act.

The Soviets invaded Poland in mid-September, then tried to negotiate a portion of Finnish

territory for their own uses.

For one, they wanted to install a military base on Finnish soil, just as they had done

with several other Baltic states.

But Finland wouldn't have it, so a second conflict, known as the Winter War, kicked off

between the two parties.

It resulted in many casualties and the eventual signing of the Moscow peace treaty, which

gave the Soviet Union one-tenth of Finland for themselves.

We look back at the Soviets as allies who helped us defeat the Nazis, but after the

...